AN ARMY OF HEALTHY WOMEN AND BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS UNITE TO FIND THE CAUSE OF BREAST CANCER
More than 300,000 women from across the U.S. have signed up for the Love/Avon Army of Women creating a nationwide movement to eradicate breast cancer. Eighty percent of the women who have joined the Army of Women have never had breast cancer, but want to play a role in ending the disease once and for all.
The Army of Women is a first of its kind partnership between breast cancer researchers and women willing to participate in studies aimed at finding the cause of breast cancer and determining how to prevent it. The goal of the Army of Women is to recruit one million women of all ages and ethnicities whether they have had breast cancer or not.
Over the past year, researchers have recruited more than 12,000 volunteers for a wide range of studies, including the effects of diet and exercise to looking at a possible genetic link between sisters as well as hormones and postmenopausal women.
"Determining the cause of breast cancer is not just going to take more research, it's going to take a different type of research," said Dr. Susan Love, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation. "Studying mice and rats isn't enough. After all, mice and rats don't get breast cancer. We need more studies with real women and our Army of Women is eager and willing to volunteer."
This year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and more than 40,000 will die from the disease. Every three minutes in the U.S. a women is diagnosed with breast cancer.